


Manuscripts and Mistakes

by sexonastick



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-11 05:30:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8956312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sexonastick/pseuds/sexonastick
Summary: Rory's life is close to changing, but she still feels stuck and stagnant.





	1. the rising action

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is for [Smallandsundry](https://smallandsundry.tumblr.com/), as part of our holiday exchange.
> 
> Part of this is honestly darker than it maybe should be and I am so, so sorry for that. 
> 
> Major trigger warning in the end notes.

* * *

The drive between Stars Hollow and New York City is only made tolerable thanks to an Audible subscription and a healthy dose of comedy podcasts -- most of them recommended by Lane.

This only works temporarily. In a few months, the drive will start to be nearly unbearable, with Rory's baby bump pressing ever closer to the steering wheel. Her feet and ankles are going to get swollen. Her back is going to become sore.

For now, it's mostly just hunger that's a problem and actually that's probably pretty standard operating procedure for a Gilmore. 

That might not be the baby at all. There's so little of it there, even now.

When Rory looks at herself in the mirror, she still has to imagine so many of the details. 

She pictures the curves of her own stomach, how they're going to change, but also the baby's face. She studies the angle of her nose and wonders how much of her own mother will be in little Emily.

Rory has decided to name the baby Emily if it's a girl. Richard for a boy.

It barely qualifies as a decision. More like something she knew innately the moment she realized she was pregnant.

When she told Mom, she just kind of stood there with a look of quiet acceptance on her face. It's the look she normally wears when she's moved in ways she doesn't expect and doesn't know how to turn her feelings into a punchline. 

"You're going to be okay, kid," Lorelai had said eventually, wrapping an arm around Rory's shoulder like she was afraid she was going to fall apart at any moment. Maybe it was to keep both of them together. "You know that, right?"

Most days, Rory feels like she knows that now. 

Even so, it was good to hear it. 

* 

Her meeting with her publisher is early Monday morning in Manhattan.

"We could just do this over the phone," the woman had said, sounding vaguely concerned.

That's what worried Rory. The vague concern.

"No, that's fine, I'd rather do it face-to-face."

Even if that wasn't true, it was obviously best to pretend. Rory was starting to learn her lesson about things that felt like they were already a done deal -- Harvard, Logan, SandeeSays, and nearly every other facet of her life -- it doesn't matter if they say you're the one that they want. That's not really what anyone means.

They don't mean the you that you are. They don't mean the real you, so relax, just be. They mean the person they imagine. They mean all the effort you put in to pretend, to prepare, to be the best 100% of the time, all the way, no rest. They want that. Not you.

Nobody actually wants the real you.

* 

So Rory drives into the city for a meeting on Monday, fully intending to drive back out again by the early afternoon.

Paris says she doesn't mind. 

Truth be told, she seems grateful for the company, more quiet than usual. She asks questions and actually listens to every one of Rory's stories as she's rambling -- she's absolutely rambling, but she's stressed, so go figure -- about the life that's started to grow around her in Stars Hollow, despite her very best attempts to extricate herself. 

"I still haven't decided _where_ Emily and I -- or Richard, I suppose -- will be living."

From her place sprawled out on the sofa dramatically, Paris goes very still. Their eyes meet. "You're staying in New York, of course."

She doesn't frame it like it's a question.

"Well. When I say that I don't know, it means I haven't reached my conclusion yet."

"A conclusion suggests there are two equally valuable options being weighed here." Paris sits up, shoulders tense. "When it's fairly obvious, I would think, that New York City is the best environment to raise a child in. There's culture, there's art, there's history."

"I got all of those things in Stars Hollow too." She pauses. "Well… not the art. And a lot of the culture sort of revolved around just a couple people but, you know, that builds--"

"If you say it builds character, Rory, I swear to god, I'll scream."

Never mind. She's exactly the same Paris as usual. "Okay, so it builds… conscience?"

"What on earth does that mean?"

"I don't know, obviously I was going to say character, so I had to improvise."

Paris scoffs. "If you want to be paid to write, you might want to work on your verbiage."

"Writer, Paris, not a stand-up comedian." 

"Oh, I don't know, Rory. The idea that you might raise your child in Stars Hollow has me in stitches. It's just a total laugh riot. 'Five stars,' says the New York Times. 'I laughed so hard my sides were aching.'"

Rory can't tell if they're fighting. 

Sometimes it's hard to tell with Paris. She talks about every topic, no matter how minor, as though it's a battle to be conquered. And this approach has worked out kind of well for her so far, the possibility of heart attacks in her 30s aside.

Rory waits a moment for the air to deflate from the room and then starts again, in a slightly softer register. "So like I was saying… I'm not sure where we'll live yet. I'm weighing my options--" Paris looks ready to answer, so she pushes onward quickly, talking faster; "-- and New York is _absolutely_ one of them."

Paris stills again, the tension in her shoulders wilting. "Oh." She shrugs. "Well, alright, if you have to take your time."

"I've got a few months, I think I'll be okay." 

"Careful. You'll be waddling before you know it."

But Rory can't help but smile at the thought.

* 

At one time, she was terrified. Not of just the baby -- although that too -- but also of the new life she'd have to lead.

The whole reason her Mom had done half the things she had to do, the life she'd had to lead, the sacrifices made, was all so Rory could have everything. Not just money, but freedom. Choice.

The world as an oyster.

And it had felt so true. So real. The kind of endless opportunity that you can reach out and touch, except now it's like she's in her thirties, when her career is really supposed to be hitting its stride, and it turns out she's allergic to shellfish.

It had been so easy before. In Stars Hollow, at Chilton, even at Yale, she had been able to prove herself just by applying enough talents. She knew she was gifted. She knew she was smart and, sure, pretty too.

But here she is with none of the pieces in place. Even Paris, who has been a mess more times than Rory could possibly count, has got her shit so fully together. Sure, she has her moments of instability, but that's probably just Paris, and nothing's going to change that. It probably never should.

But Rory is supposed to be a steady person. A rock. 

Except the only part of that she's got down so far has been the sinking.

She doesn't want to look to a kid to change all that. That's really not how it works. You're not supposed to hoist all your expectations off on them -- onto any one person -- and expect that everything will magically work out. Now you'll be who you want, without having to figure out what's wrong with the person you already are. 

But sometimes she thinks about what little Richard (or Emily) will do or be. All the ways that they'll do it better. Thirty-two is kind of early for a midlife crisis, but it's easier to get through when you can put your hand on your stomach and feel the future stretching out before you instead of looking too long into the past.

So of course, yes, at one time Rory was so afraid of the idea of suddenly being a mother -- a single mother, with no right to ever contact the father and ruin his life (and his new wife's) all over again -- sometimes she couldn't sleep at night. 

She's still not sure if she'll make a very good mother. But it's not really up to her anymore, is it? The opportunities have been narrowed. All that freedom is gone and it's… simpler this way, maybe. 

She doesn't have to be Rory Gilmore, disappointment and screw up, lost and searching in her thirties. 

She can just be a mom. That's enough.

* 

First thing Monday morning, Paris is hovering more than usual. 

That might be because Rory is methodically tap-dancing her way from room to room, in search of… something. 

Whatever she needs to feel centered today. 

Somehow nothing seems to fit.

That's mostly not a metaphor. Everything about her outfit feels wrong, from the way her hair falls against her shoulders all the way down to the shoes.

And that's not okay because more than anything, Rory wants to be ready for this. She wants to be the version of herself that people prefer. The practiced her. The one who rehearses speeches in her head and knows the answers anyone might want to hear by heart. 

It'd just be a lot easier if she had the right pair of heels.

"Check in my closet," Paris offers eventually, scowling with displeasure as she watches Rory moving rhythmically past her for the third time. "See if anything you like fits."

"Thank you," Rory says, panting more than she'd like. Her pregnancy definitely isn't far enough along for that to be all baby. Maybe she should consider this gym thing crazy people talk about? (No. Not happening.) "You're the best."

"Please do not _tap_ in my Louboutins."

"Uh-huh," Rory calls behind her as she side-step-heel-behinds right back down the hall. "Gotcha."

"I mean it, Rory!"

* 

Just in case Rory had any funny ideas about tap-dancing in designer shoes, Paris is kind enough to watch her from the doorway looking equal parts determined and annoyed.

Paris's expression is so sullen that Rory half-anticipates that she will just rescind the offer. 

What she says instead is a little surprising. "You know this isn't necessary, right?" Unless that's some kind of roundabout way of backing out on offering the shoes.

"My publisher's the one who called me. So yeah, it is, it's kind of incredibly necessary."

"I meant the fixating you do on the right clothes." Paris crosses her arms. "I get having a fixation, Rory, and even a tendency toward perfection. Believe it or not, I can get hung up on things sometimes."

"Wow, uh. I hadn't noticed."

Paris scowls again, but presses onward; "My point is, you don't need all that. You're charming and you're smart. You have those Disney princess eyes, and those don't go away as you get older, so don't think that's in the past. You're the goods, baby. You know? So own it. And stop worrying about the shoes."

That's probably Paris's version of nice. 

In fact… it's just sort of nice in general. No matter who said it. 

For a moment, Rory is just silent. Uncertain.

Then she smiles, slowly. "Thanks, Paris." She hesitates with one shoe on and one off.

Paris rolls her eyes and disappears back through the door with a sound of disgust. "You can still borrow them. God."

Rory doesn't wait long enough for her to potentially change her mind. "Thank you!"

*

The meeting is in midtown. Rory makes sure to leave early enough to account for any unexpected subway delays and still have plenty of time left for coffee and a bagel, toasted with cream cheese.

She sits in Bryant Park and enjoys the early morning sunlight. 

The weather is going to change soon, assuming there's any sanity or reliability left in any part of our global weather patterns. Winter should be coming shortly after.

New York is beautiful in the winter time, but not as much as Stars Hollow.

Maybe she should pick home after all.

* 

"I don't want to panic you," is a terrifying thing to say just five minutes into a meeting, but that's exactly what her publisher is doing.

"Oh, I'm not panicked." Not true, not in the least. Rory's panicking, and it probably shows in the speed at which she's talking. "I'm just curious why you called me in here today, what you wanted to talk about. I'm a very curious person, you know, it's a quality to have in a writer. A good one. A quality that accounts for a large part of my qualifications, you might say. And I just did, so--"

The woman does not look amused or even slightly charmed. 

"Ms. Gilmore." Rory goes silent and the woman attempts half a smile. "I don't want you to feel like we're not on your side. We are. It's just…" She gestures at the pages in front of her.

Rory's manuscript. Her entire life's work and most of what accounts for the actual sum total of her life, stretched out in stacks of ink. The flip and casual way the woman seems to regard it makes her heart sink. She sits up straighter. "You don't like it? I thought--"

"No, that's not--"

"You loved it. You _said_ you loved it." There's that panic again, rising up into such a high octave it must be bypassing her brain because she knows better than to do this, she does, but here she is saying, "You're my publisher. I'm being published, or at least I thought!"

"Rory, please." 

She breathes deeply, choking back the next words. They weren't especially rational anyway. 

"We do love it. But even you have to admit…" The woman waves her hand in vague concern again. "There's no ending."

There it is. The bane of every writer's existence.

Endings. 

"It's autobiographical," Rory answers, much more sharply than she would like -- maybe because a part of her knows the woman's right. "Life doesn't have an ending either."

"It's also a story. It should have its own cadence and destination." The woman places one hand on top of the stack of papers, intended perhaps as a gesture of concern and solidarity. A gentleness. 

It just makes Rory feel strangely protective of the sheaves of paper. She wants to clutch the words to her chest and shield them from the critical eye of the world.

Editing, sure. That's one thing.

But saying that there is no ending to her story is like admitting there's no destination yet in her life.

Oh. 

Right.

*

Rory walks out of her publisher's office feeling sick but at least slightly reassured that her book deal is still on the table, if somewhat delayed.

_"Go out there and find your ending."_

Unfortunately every road that might taken her down at the moment feels frighteningly fatalistic. It's probably a good thing she's never been as inclined toward insane dramatics as her mom or she might do something _really_ stupid. 

Stupider than usual. 

Instead she loads up on ice cream and sulks at one of the tables in the park. It's not as pretty as it was just an hour ago. 

Even the French music playing at the carousel feels more cloying than it is quant, and French music playing at a carousel while children laugh and play nearby is usually the kind of on-the-nose atheistic that Rory can take a lot of non-ironic pleasure in. (Okay realistically it's more the sort of irony that transforms itself through gradual investment and becomes inevitably sincere again, so for the sake of brevity: "non-ironic" is fine as a descriptor.) 

But not today. Today she's no-pleasure Rory and her endlessly unproductive life with no peaks and a whole lot of valleys.

The kids are still cute, though.

*

She realizes that's it, of course. Maybe she knows it even before she leaves the park.

It's the same answer she's been using to keep afloat for months: Emily. Or Richard. The kid. Her kid. The part of her that will be perfect, absolute and adorable. 

The her that won't mess things up. She can get life a whole lot more right if she gets a second shot at it, although maybe that kind of thinking is unhealthy. 

Sort of too late now.

*

But a child isn't only a solution. They can also be a destination.

Answer to that great big question: why? Why now?

Why Rory Gilmore? Why at all?

*

Okay, so that part might be a bit of a work in progress.

In the meantime, Rory thinks it might be best to do a little foundational work on the final chapters of her novel as well as practicing for her own baby yet to come.

"Paris," she says into her cell phone as she very carefully slips off the Louboutins; "I think I need to stay a little longer, if that's fine?"

There's silence on the other end of the line and Rory wonders if she should have texted. Although inviting yourself to invade someone else's life for an indefinite amount of time really seems like more of a verbal exchange. 

Call her old fashioned.

"Yeah," Paris says eventually, her voice slightly distant. "Sure. Just stay in the guest room. Half the closet is already your stuff anyway."

Whatever's going on with her right now, Rory can't take the time to guess. Maybe someone at work is stressing her out. Maybe it's something to do with Doyle -- or she's convinced yet again that he and Rory have been meeting in secret, despite the pregnancy and all. It could be anything. 

Really.

So instead she answers quickly, eager to end the call before a retraction can be made. "Thank you, Paris! I'll pick the kids up from school myself!"

*

Time for research to begin.

*

Nellie and Carl are, let's say, old fashioned and unusual -- when what we obviously mean is _terrible_ \-- names for children, but they're such good kids that it doesn't really matter most of the time. They have friends, or at least they seem to. It's honestly hard to tell how they're really doing when it all comes filtered through a layer of Paris who even at this age seems a little detached from her own life.

Not that Rory's been super grounded lately.

That's something she's been working on. Being present, you know? Inside her own self and her own life, and not just pretending to have the future she may have wanted.

So maybe she'll never be a journalist. There are other kinds of truths to tell. 

Other stories.

Her mother is the bravest person she's ever met. That's true. 

And someday soon, maybe thousands or even millions will read about it. That's the power of the written Word. It's influential and transformative. 

It can alter lives, even the author's.

*

"I told them," Paris says one day, watching the children playing in the other room from her place perched at the edge of the sofa. "If anyone at school makes fun of them for their names, they should say they were named for greatness. And anyone who doesn't appreciate that is an ignoramus, unworthy of being part of their team." 

"You told your seven year old to call her classmates ignorami?"

"It's ignoramuses."

"Technically, yes, but ignorami is considered a viable alternative for ease of pronunciation." 

"Hmm." Paris sips her tea. 

"So… you did." 

"Did what?"

"Told Nellie to call another student an ignoramus, as if that will help her make friends."

"Well, no. I said that child would be an ignoramus. What I told her to do was come to me and I'll handle it."

"You'll handle it."

"Yes, Rory, what? I didn't stutter." 

"Like some kind of mob thing? You'll put a hit out on a pre-schooler."

"They're well beyond their pre-school years now."

"Certainly. What _was_ I thinking?"

"Clearly more about your punchline than reality." Paris pauses. "But no, my thought was I would go to Nellie's school and talk to the other parents, you know. Woman to woman. Or woman to man, I don't know. It'd have to be me either way. The new Hollywood Doyle couldn't handle it. He wilts at confrontation."

"Why does there have to _be_ a confrontation?" 

"Because half my daughter's classmates are the children of cloying inbred socialites with names like Muffin and, I don't know, Kit-Kat. And if they think they can make my daughter's life a living hell because Doyle and I favored tributes to literacy and the written Word over names like Blake or Eliza, I'm going to have to intervene. And you know I don't do that kind of thing nicely." She shrugs, a long suffering sigh at her lips. "It's just not in my nature."

"And what about Carl?"

"Oh, he'll be fine. People think we named him after someone on that show with the zombies everybody watches." Off of Rory's look, Paris smirks. "I know, right? As if. But it removes a complication, so I don't argue."

"Yeah, that's what you're known for. The _not_ arguing."

* 

But most of the time, they really don't fight. They barely even bicker.

It's easy, almost peaceful. 

It reminds Rory of college, except without any of the drama from the men in their life -- outside of Carl, who is honestly mostly drama free, despite both of his parents being who and what they are. Most of the time they spend talking about guys at all is when Rory revises earlier chapters just to flex her creative muscles. 

A lot of the conversations do not end on a very positive note, but then they quickly change the subject to what they'll be ordering as takeout. Rory gets the impression that Paris usually has more refined taste when she's eating alone -- or with Doyle -- but with Rory she's always satisfied with delivery. 

The good news is it's Queens, so not every single location is gluten free and vegan. There are options. 

Like her, Paris is very much carnivorous. 

"Something with fewer carbs for me this time, I think," Paris announces as she takes over the laptop. "The last time we ordered from here, I was sweating it out at the gym for a week. While I do appreciate the excuse to kick box the hell out of my personal trainer, my schedule's a little tight right now. I just don't have the time to allow for personal betterment outside the emotional, which is taxing in its own right, you know?."

Paris and Doyle had been going to couples therapy for a brief period before the divorce became a certainty and Paris decided she enjoyed having a captive audience who was often too afraid to disagree with anything she said.

From what little she'd heard about the experience, Rory half-suspected the woman might have been willing to pay Paris to stop the sessions.

But you can't argue with results.

Things have become so easy, almost the kind of life a person might imagine -- minus the business aspirations an any semblance of a functional relationship with a man. But, you know. Setting those aside.

It's really nice.

* 

And it all ends so fast.


	2. the sudden fall

* * *

The divorce happens unbearably slow, but that's by design. It's meant to be painful. That's how Paris wants it.

For Doyle, anyway. 

"I want him to suffer," she says to her lawyer, an incompetent and sweaty man who knows just enough about the proceedings to move them forward at a glacial pace, about four times slower than the norm.

His eyes are round and slightly damp. Maybe he's going to start crying.

It would be that kind of day, wouldn't it?

"This isn't about the money. We both have money." God, Paris wishes she was still smoking. Her hands fidget on the seat but she forces herself to maintain the appearance of composure. "I'm seeking compensation for emotional damages and I choose to take my payment in the form of emotional damage done to him."

Paris smiles at that, pleased with her own play on words. 

These are the kinds of things she would rather be saying aloud to Rory -- she, at least, would appreciate the wordplay in a way that this imbecile is clearly unprepared to -- but she's tired of that slightly horrified expression Rory's adopted around her lately, the slack jaw and worried eyes. It's infuriating. 

As if Gilmore has any of her old moral high ground left to sneer down from.

*

But however useless she might have become in terms of full throated support of Paris's ideas and aspirations, Rory still sticks around for a little while. She makes herself useful in other ways.

She has a clinical eye. 

For organization of the book shelves, for fashion choices made at 6am. For those days when one of the kids has gone missing, and Rory always seems to know where he or she might be found.

Useful stuff to have around a house or an apartment.

When Paris and the children move to another borough, Rory comes along too, at least in practice. Because as much time as she might still spend on planes or in cars, jetting back and forth, from one home to another, she still has deals to work out with her publisher, who is based in New York City.

Because despite all this time, Rory still is not published, even long after all Doyle's terrible T-shirts have all been turned into dishrags.

Their new home is in Astoria, of course, the new It Neighborhood with the implied capital I reserved for properties costing enough to take out a capital loan. The kind of "It" that means expensive and trendy and the "their" which means only Paris and the kids, of course, because Rory is only a house guest, free to leave whenever she wants. 

It just so happens that, increasingly, what Rory Gilmore apparently wants is to spend the night in the guest room. The old place is still available as an option -- with property values plummeting after the announced work on the L line, Paris has held off on selling -- but according to Rory she prefers the company. (She even sounds like she might actually mean it.)

Company. Not the kind that you can run or that brings in billions and acclaim, no, company as in a real human connection.

Paris never really thought it would be the kind of company she cared for.

She's seeing things different now.

*

A lot of things are different.

After the baby.

*

Paris is there when it happens.

She can't think of it without feeling slightly sick.

Sure, she's received a whole slew of overly graphic photos via texts of a few of the women she employs halfway through the miracle of childbirth -- before promptly deleting the evidence of what might most likely qualify as a severe breach of the employee/employer relationship, grateful for the reminder of why men are, as ever, The Worst -- but this is different.

This is... a lot of blood.

Rory comes stumbling out of the bathroom and clutches the railing, hands soaked in blood. She leaves streaks on the polished oak finish and somehow Paris doesn't care. 

She won't even notice until she returns home to the quiet of the empty apartment hours later. 

*

The new Nanny has taken Nellie and Carl out after receiving what must have been a confusing and panicked call from Paris. She would have to call her back.

Paris hates the way her footsteps sound against the wood. The echo, with no movement in return. Only silence as a response. 

She had thought this would be an improvement over the bustle of the hospital -- the pale and drawn look on Rory's face and Lorelai shouting on the phone, speaking faster than even Paris can understand, saying she is on her way (to the airport? to New York?) -- but very suddenly she prefers the idea of the noise. Even all the people.

Even the hospital, and god she hates hospitals. 

But the nurses had asked her to leave, and as much as Paris was usually the sort of person to defy others -- medical staff in particular, as it would happen -- she has to comply once Rory agrees with them. 

"Paris, it's fine," she'd said, softly.

* 

Before she left, Paris did take it upon herself to enjoy a moment of supreme satisfaction by humiliating one particularly ignorant and difficult staff member who kept asking Rory how to contact her boyfriend or husband.

Moron.

*

But the house is still too quiet.

After speaking to Nanny, Paris lingers for a while in the living room, considering a nap. It would be the most responsible thing to do, she thinks, to make certain she is physically and emotionally prepared if Rory needs her.

But she can't close her eyes without seeing the blood.

Her hands flex, jaw tightening. She gets up from the sofa to pace, eventually widening her route to extend to most of the bottom floor of the apartment. 

Her eyes snag on the traces of blood as she retraces her steps back from the kitchen (with a glass of water). She stops, pulse pounding in her throat.

Paris walks (quickly) back the way she came to retrieve cleaning supplies from underneath the sink. (Rory left them there, she thinks. Rory, for some unknown reason, sometimes cleans when she's all tapped out but still overwhelmed by stress.)

A scrub brush, baking powder, and soap. Paris remembers Nanny, her Nanny, filling a bucket with soapy water and washing the landing when Paris herself was only five years old and incredibly alarmed by the sudden rush of blood filling her mouth when she lost her very first tooth.

This will be something similar, she wants to believe. 

Something that can be fixed and made well (whole) at some point. Isn't that the way that life is supposed to work?

*

The next phone call never comes, though Lorelai does send a text to say she got in okay. She's at the hospital.

"Rory is fine," it says.

That seems unlikely at best. 

* 

Rory does not come to stay with Paris (and the kids) for quite some time after that, and Paris certainly can't blame her.

She's even tempted, once or twice, to look into buying another apartment. 

One that hasn't been the scene of such… loss.

But Rory calls the idea ridiculous -- in that familiar (almost reassuring in how familiar) tone of voice she would often use to tell Paris she wasn't complying enough with expected social standards.

"Paris," she says over coffee. "Don't be ridiculous."

"But you haven't been by. Not since it happened. And the kids--" Rory winces at the word, and Paris hates herself for not considering that, how it would feel to be reminded in any way; "-- well, they miss you."

"I miss them," Rory answers vaguely, evasively shifting her shoulders, avoiding eye contact. She looks at her own cup of coffee as though it is incredibly fascinating. 

But it's Starbucks, so obviously that's not the case. It's red. They're all red after November, it's not particularly riveting. ("Neither is the flavor signature of a Starbucks coffee," Rory would have reminded her.) 

This was becoming a habit now, where Paris might think of what Rory, her usual self, would have said and then provides herself that commentary as part of an inner monologue. 

Her therapist would probably have a field day. 

"Maybe we can set up a playdate," Paris says, careful not to allow herself to respond aloud to the Rory that exists only inside her own head. That would be weird, even for her. "You, me, and the kids. To… the museum." 

Both Rory and Paris like the Natural History Museum, although Rory sometimes seems to prefer the Guggenheim. (Paris had hoped that was originally some kind of hipster phase that would eventually be outgrown, but Rory had somehow never fully matured past 23.)

"Which one?"

Paris can't help but smile at that, feeling a slight flush of victory at the door nudging open, however slightly. "I was thinking maybe the Guggenheim."

She doesn't even bother to hide her full flush of satisfaction when Rory looks up with the first signs of interest she's offered all day. "Oh?"

"I hear there's a really vapid and pretentious exhibit," Paris singsongs. "It's almost impenetrable. The kind of thing out-of-towners line up hours for, and I've got access to the front of the line."

Trying to impress yuppies who really want to give birth sometimes has its perks in terms of how many pointless memberships her company provides access to. 

"Paris, that's…"

An awful idea. A waste of a good Saturday.

The first time she and Rory will spend more than twenty minutes together since it happened, and therefor totally worth both their time.

And that's when Rory smiles. For the first time since it happened, Paris sees her smile. "I'd really like to. You, me, the kids." 

"It's a date," Paris answers with the sort of forced enthusiasm she usually reserves for clients. (Except this time, it isn't really forced at all.)

* 

She only realizes much later what it was she'd actually said.

*

Later meaning at 11:32pm, when she begins pacing the length of her bedroom, reciting various understandings and definitions of the word "date" aloud and consulting Siri on an acceptable mourning period after the loss of potential life.

Because it should probably be longer than three and a half weeks, right?

*

This definitely isn't a date.

Because nobody in their right mind would bring a date here to look at gold plated toilets. That's an actual thing. They put it in a museum and now it's art.

God.

Something (strike that - _everything_ ) about this new century has left Paris feeling a lot like somebody's old grandmother, but honestly, back in her day there were standards. Not just for art, but everything. Life. 

Life had standards and it didn't hurt good people for no god damn reason. Just look at the Bible. It's not like it's some accurate record of the course of human history, clearly, but it certainly demonstrates that even ancient man had an understanding of cosmic balance and karma. You do bad things and bad will happen to you and if you're relatively good then life doesn't get to take a great big dump on your chest and call you even.

Sure, admittedly, sleeping with a soon-to-be married man wasn't exactly Rory Gilmore's shining moment, but Paris has done worse, right?

Undoubtedly. 

And she's not proud of (most) of it, but she took her lumps, she grew up, and now she has a pretty stable and successful life for a thirty-two year old. 

So what the hell went wrong with Rory?

These are the kinds of things Paris can't help but ask herself as she and the kids follow Rory around a museum filled with so-called "art."

There's no way Carl or Nellie are finding any of this appropriately stimulating.

*

It must be around the third or fourth time that Paris sighs heavily when Rory turns to her sharply, saying, "You know we can go do something else if you'd prefer."

"What? No." Paris is watching Nellie and Carl out of the corner of her eye as they take turns spinning each other in circles. "I'm very excited to see Toilet Guy's blue period."

"Paris."

"Oh, who am I kidding? He almost certainly has a _brown_ period or perhaps--"

"This was your idea, remember? I didn't suggest it."

There's that familiar sound of righteous indignation creeping back into Rory's voice that Paris hasn't heard in… well, three and a half weeks at least. 

It's such a relief that she almost smiles. "No, you're right. But the kids are getting restless, so maybe we should send them home with Nanny."

It couldn't possibly be a date if The Help is there.

(Not that it's a date at all.)

* 

God, why would she even care?

*

_"God, why"_ might actually account for roughly sixty-two percent of every thought Paris has ever had about Rory.

Like when she seriously suspected that Rory might be sleeping with Doyle in secret -- a stupid and paranoid suspicion, sure, but one at least somewhat grounded in the reality where they both know way too much about each other and somehow talk and still tolerate one another behind Paris's _back_ , and maybe it wasn't so stupid after all -- and all she could think was, god, since when does Rory lack such standards?

That had been her actual problem with the idea that her best (only?) friend might be sleeping with the man that was technically still her husband. That she might have lowered her standards. For him, of all people.

God, why.

Or the time she had kissed Rory in the club and felt some… thing. Something not unlike attraction or even maybe something more. How trite. "Something more," like something from the prose of E.L. James. Like a sex scene that fades to black or a kiss that ends too soon.

Something more. Like that. 

Like the first day Paris saw Rory and knew this girl was going to ruin her life. She couldn't guess at the time, of course, the kind of impact the woman would have fully grown.

Even then she wondered sometimes, occasionally -- lying in bed and dreaming of Tristan's strong hands and pouty lips -- about what Rory's chapstick would feel like on her mouth.

Once they kissed (once only, briefly), she'd finally known.

Rory tastes like raspberry and regret. Like the most trite poem in existence. Like expectations and hopes never met.

Something more.

*

(There's a reason Paris doesn't write anymore, and it's not _just_ because she almost had a nervous breakdown her last year of college.)

*

Words are a connection to other people on a fundamental level. It's about understanding and empathizing, both things Paris has never excelled at or even had a particular interest in. 

She used to think, you take the Truth of a thing and you dress it up any way you like, and that's enough. But it's not. 

Most things require more. Otherwise you're just an empty briefcase there for show. (A metaphor only, obviously. Nobody would know anything about a thing like that. That's absurd.)

* 

Nanny agrees to take the children and Paris wraps them both up into a tight embrace, peppering their faces with kisses. 

"I love you, mommy," they say almost in unison and when Paris stands again she sees Rory is smiling without moving. She doesn't even breathe. 

The expression is cut into her face like a wound from a knife, frozen and still.

Three and a half weeks is not enough time.

*

Paris is quiet the rest of their time spent at the museum. She lets Rory look at whatever dumb art she wants to and even refrains from commenting when they spend an absurdly long time lingering in front of an abstract work portraying a man and woman as figures composed entirely of triangles. 

It's not as though Paris thinks that she's above all art. But Picasso was actually brilliant and most modern day efforts feel like little more than imitation -- as though you could photocopy genius over and over and still retain its value.

Ludicrous.

Still, she suspects that there might be something more to the way that Rory lingers with her eyes drifting over the image. Not just an aesthetic appreciation.

Paris hasn't said Huntzberger's name since Rory ended things all those months ago. She's been careful. Considerate, even.

But it's not like Rory is very good at hiding her emotions.

She sulks. 

Paris has never been one for sulking. She prefers direct action, which sometimes leads to consequence, sure, but also resolution. Movement. Progress.

That's how you build an empire. That's how you conquer a world, or at least a board room. 

So it makes very little sense to her -- quite frankly, it's annoying -- when she looks at Rory, that pained look on her face, and can't think of anything to say. Words feel insufficient.

Since when has Paris not had the words for something? Carefully considered verbiage is kind of her thing.

*

Since Rory. That's when.

It's been like that from the very beginning.

*

They leave the museum almost on accident. They've wound their way slowly up the spiraling structure at its center and then back down again, moving almost entirely in silence once the kids have left. 

Now they're back at the entrance and Rory, hands tucked carefully in her jacket says, "I guess that's it."

Like she's saying goodbye to someone forever. So dramatic.

"Coffee," Paris counters instead. 

Like offering drugs to an addict. (Strictly speaking, caffeine literally is a drug and Gilmore consumes enough that it most likely does have addictive properties for her. It's hardly even an analogy when it's this accurate.) 

Rory shrugs. "Sure, okay. Let's go get coffee."

* 

They walk a few blocks further just to avoid whichever caffeine option falls below Rory's threshold of quality control. If Paris could have guessed what their conversation would be about, she would have insisted on somewhere else, further downtown.

Just to prolong what turns out to be inevitable. 

Because it's only five minutes into sipping her latte that Rory says, "I'm leaving."

"Back to Stars Hollow?" Paris isn't sure why it's disappointing. Rory is seldom around anymore. She deserves to be around friends and family, to heal. 

It still leaves a pit in her stomach that only gets worse when Rory says, "No."

Like a giant chasm opening up and other trite concepts that prove Paris is no longer the writer she once was. She isn't thinking cleverly or analytically. She's almost in full on panic mode. "LA then?" With Doyle.

"No, I'm going on a road trip."

"Horseshit."

Rory nearly looks startled by the outburst of emotion, the sharp and clipped way that the words come out. 

Paris cannot help herself or completely disguise her disgust. "To where? Doing what, Kerouac?"

"Helping people. Investing in things outside myself and my own problems," Rory answers carefully and resolutely, as though she's practiced this very answer. 

Of course she has.

"I hope you have a wonderful time," Paris answers sharply. "Try not to die, okay? I hear that really gets in the way of writing the next great American novel."

"What's with you?"

"Nothing, okay?" Paris gets up quickly. "I have to go. I'll tell the kids you said goodbye."

"Paris--"

But that's it. She's gone.

* 

When is Rory Gilmore going to grow the Hell up?


	3. conflict strategies

* * *

Rory spends the last night before she leaves for her road trip in her childhood bed, gazing up at the familiar notches in her ceiling. Curled up beneath the covers, she feels incredibly small, despite all the ways in which she's grown.

Maybe partially because of the ways she hasn't.

Her hand drifts to her belly almost automatically, but she forces it to go still against the sheets, gripping fabric instead. 

Finally, she falls to sleep, listening to Luke and Lorelai whispering to one another in the next room over.

*

"This is like me and hiking, right?" Mom asks the very next morning, looming in the doorway before Rory feels fully awake. "So you do this. And then you come home, in one piece."

Rory blinks at her slowly. "Mmhm."

"Maybe after a day."

It's a beautiful day outside the window in Stars Hollow, but a normal one. Not life changing at all. 

"Maybe longer," Rory says.

"Maybe?"

"Definitely."

Lorelai nods, over and over, as though acceptance might grow through repetition.

Judging by her expression, it doesn't.

* 

Luke clutches Rory to himself awkwardly once she's ready to leave. She's pretty sure it's meant as a hug. 

"You take care, okay?" 

"You guys realize I'm not dying or joining the army, right? I'm just on my way to Jersey."

Lorelai makes a face, but it feels like a half-hearted gesture. "And that way lies death, young Padawan." 

"Nuh-uh. Christie is away on vacation."

The feigned disgust starts to slip from Lorelai's face and even the smile is weakening. Rory hugs her quick and hurries to the car to avoid the temptation to stay.

*

The first stop is Jersey with disaster relief for flooding. Rory helps deliver canned goods and water to people in shelters and volunteers to help manage the line of blood donors.

She's there a week and a half.

* 

She meets people while she's there who do this for a living, work for organizations that help people, getting so little back in return. It makes most of her problems -- men and even her career -- seem small in comparison to try to imagine just what it would take to give so much of yourself up without expecting a return.

She thinks Grandpa would have said it isn't good business sense, but that he would have admired their dedication and heart all the same. 

Rory hopes he would have admired her too. If only for this one thing.

* 

On her second day delivering bottled water, she talks to a mother of three about the damage to her home. Their basement flooded, destroying family albums.

Rory sort of thought nobody really had those anymore. She and Paris had both ranted just a little while ago about how nothing was permanent anymore, everybody's lives all on the internet.

Turns out even the so-called permanent things aren't forever.

It's enough to make Rory almost wistful, and could certainly serve as a pretty solid foundation for a write up for certain publications or at least a blog. She's parsing through the concepts as she stands there, rearranging sentences and sequencing grammar inside her head.

But when the woman talks about her children -- telling stories from their childhoods, the ones that must have existed once in photos -- it's like nothing was lost at all. 

Rory forgets what she had meant to write down.

*

The next stop is up in Michigan. Then North Dakota.

It's getting colder, so she heads to California, where the fires are only starting to die down.

The next thing Rory knows, it's month two. 

And three.

*

This isn't about the book. 

Rory tells herself over and over that she's not doing this to find an ending. (She has to _keep_ telling herself, because most days she's still not sure.) The kid whose name she never allows herself to consider again -- Emily or maybe Richard -- is never coming back. 

That ending is finished. No longer an option.

But she's not doing this for the book.

*  
She travels back to the midwest, to deliver winter jackets to protestors awaiting the first snowfall. Her rental car beaks down halfway there and she waits two hours on the side of the road for AAA to come, passing the time by making up stories with her Mom on the phone about the strangers driving past. 

"You did _not_ see a Volkswagen Beetle, they're extinct!" Lorelai shouts from the other end of the line while Rory chews a granola bar and snaps a photo of the car passing by for posterity. "Like prehistoric bugs."

"Not all prehistoric bugs are extinct, you know."

It sounds as if Mom's ready to keep up the original argument, but suddenly she's _very_ distracted. "Wait, what?"

"Not all bugs--"

"No, gross, I don't need to know that. This is one of those things Mommy never needs to know." 

"Ohh, one of _those_ things."

"Yes, like how hot dogs are made or the fact that Tom Cruise is probably really bad in bed." 

" _Really_? Tom Cruise? Still?"

"What can I tell you," Lorelai says with an audible shrug. "He's got all the right moves."

"The witty repartee of Lorelai Gilmore, ladies and gentlemen." 

"I'll be here all night."

Rory checks the time on her phone. "Or at least two more hours." 

"You have enough battery?" She can tell Mom's doing that thing where she tries to hide the concern by giving the words added bounce. "I assume you've been doing karaoke to Spotify the entire ride, so…"

"Battery, yes. Patience?" Rory sighs and adjusts her seat further back. "I don't know about that one."

"Well, I'm told it's a virtue."

"Since when do virtuous ladies get anything?"

There's a pause on the line. It sounds like Lorelai's walking as she talks. "That one's probably in the Bible somewhere, next to Job and.. that other one." 

"Yes, the one other man in the Bible besides Job." 

"Yeah, I knew you'd know the one."

Rory suddenly realizes her Mom is probably overseeing construction on the expansion today. (That's her best guess based on the occasional rhythmic panic of Michel in the background. Not to mention the percussion of hammers that sometimes breaks through.) 

She should let her get back to work and stop worrying. 

"Oh, wow! The tow truck got here early."

"Oh, yeah?" If Lorelai realizes Rory's lying, she doesn't let it show in her voice. "Well, okay. Talk later?"

"Sure."

* 

Despite Rory's best intentions, she still writes up drafts every night in her hotel room. Just a writer keeping in practice, of course. It doesn't mean a thing. 

She won't use it. That wouldn't be right.

Right?

*

Rory doesn't make it home for Thanksgiving. She spends her dinner at a hotel's dining service, trying to get enough of a signal to call home.

When the call doesn't go through, she drives about fifteen minutes further into the city, checking her cell for a signal until she hits three bars. 

After a thirty-three minute talk with Mom and Luke passing the phone back and forth -- complete with the expected (and probably necessary) guilt trip, of course -- she sees a voicemail blinking once she hangs up. It must have gone through only once she got in range. 

It's from Paris.

*

_"I know you're busy, Gilmore. Just don't forget that while you're out there paying penance, some of us are working in the real world and we're worried that, you know, you might have lost it. So check in once in a while, why don't you?"_

* 

The next afternoon, while waiting for pancakes at a diner, she calls.

It rings once before Paris picks up. 

"Finally," is all the other woman says at first.

"I missed you too."

"Well, I didn't say I missed you," Paris gently corrects her. She sounds tentative, like she's still afraid that Rory's delicate. (Or that she regrets how things ended.)

It annoys Rory more than it should. "No, you didn't. But you did call."

"… well, even if I didn't _miss_ you, which would be ridiculous, I can still worry, can't I?" Oh here comes manic Paris. "A person can be worried when friends take off on some kind of stupid cross country journey to find themselves. God, Rory, people die of exposure during that kind of thing."

"I'm not hiking or backpacking. I'm not doing a _Wild_ or an _Into the Wild_. I'm perfectly calm."

"Could've fooled me."

"I have a car! I drive everywhere. I sleep in a bed." Talking with Paris often leaves Rory with the bizarre impulse to literally fling her hands in the air. 

"A bed. Wow. You're really living it up."

Rory folds one arm across her chest, hand gripping her elbow, just to quell any overdramatic impulses taking hold. "Living it up is not the point. I am trying to help people."

"And punish yourself."

She can't respond at first. Paris is wrong, of course. This isn't about Rory, it's not selfish or even self-centered. It's about other people, people with bigger problems than her own.

But then why does what Paris says suddenly feel so true?

"… is this your version of wishing me a Happy Thanksgiving?" There's a building sound of anger in Rory's voice, twisting into her words, though which of them she's most upset with even she isn't sure. "Because it sucks."

She can almost hear Paris bite back the impulse to simply say "you suck." 

Instead, there's a pause. 

And then, "Happy Thanksgiving. I hope you don't freeze to death."

"I won't."

"And that you make it home in time for the holidays." 

Rory wonders for a moment which city Paris even means when she says "home." 

"Yeah, I…" But the question appears for just a moment, and then the thought is gone. Stars Hollow, of course. Paris must mean that. "Of course." 

"Because the kids do miss you. They do."

Oh.

Rory sits up straighter in the booth. The waitress arrives with her pancakes and sets them down near her elbow, alongside the plate of bacon and third cup of coffee. "Well, tell Nellie and Carl I said hey. And that I'll be home before Chanukah, with presents."

Silence. 

For a moment, Rory thinks her signal must have dropped.

And then. "Nellie wants a train set. Maybe you were right about the name; she's so old fashioned." It's funny to hear that coming from Paris, but Rory decides not to say so. "Carl keeps talking about Minecraft. It's a video game."

"I know what it is, Paris."

"He already owns it. So I don't know how you can get him it again, I don't think it's that kind of game." Another pause. "I think maybe pre-school was a bad idea. They should have been homeschooled."

"I really don't think so."

But Paris doesn't seem to be listening. "Well, no, that would be ludicrous. But a tutor of some kind. Private instruction without other students to fill Carl's head with ideas about zombies and menial labor in mines. _Mines_ , Rory. As if children didn't die so that we can enjoy the labor laws we have today."

"I don't think it works like that."

"Like you would know, living in your car out in the middle of nowhere."

It's weirdly nice hearing Paris's voice, even if half of what she's had to say has been frustrating and mildly hateful. Rory honestly can't help but smile. "I'll see you soon, Paris."

"Promise?"

"What?" Rory hesitates. 

"I said do you promise you'll come back home?"

There's that word again. Rory's eyes lock onto the pancake on her plate. The melted butter. The pool of syrup spreading out before her, creeping to the very edge.

She swallows. "Yeah, I mean… I promise?"

"It's a date," Paris says, and then immediately hangs up.

* 

There's _that_ word again.

* 

Wait, does she mean _date_ date?


	4. desperately seeking resolution

* * *

The holidays in Manhattan are like some kind of consumerist wet dream gone mad. 

Not that Paris is especially anti-consumer -- as a stance, it strikes her as both unproductive and wildly juvenile -- but this degree of almost euphoric hedonism also seems to miss what is theoretically meant to be the point of any of the December celebrations. 

Not just the whole spirit of giving thing, but the friendship and feelings of comradery that arise out of time spent in shared proximity during emotionally challenging circumstances. Like the kind of thing you read about in war time novels, but with less stabbing overall or violent deaths in trenches. 

Although on this particular Saturday, Paris feels like she would be fine with a little violent death, so long as those being assaulted are the groups of tourists walking in slow lines that take up the entire sidewalk. Or groups of children kicking other patrons on the subway. Certainly they must have been actually raised inside a barn, because they have no clue how the transportation system in a major metropolitan city is meant to function.

Namely, without so much high-pitched shrieking. 

It's only the first week of December, and she already wants to kill every tourist and at least half of the usual residents. 

Four days, but it feels like she's already had a month time of frustration. 

At least Carl and Nellie are happy, zig-zagging through the dense pockets of people and throwing their heads back to try catching snowflakes on their tongues. 

"Careful, that snowfall isn't purified. You don't know where that condensation has been, but you could have at least half a dozen guesses and most of them aren't very good."

She grabs Carl by the back of his scarf, holding tight, but Nellie breaks loose, sprinting through the crowd, and right into Rory Gilmore's waiting arms.

Rory is back. Here. In Manhattan. Standing there with a smile on her face as if everything is normal and perfectly fine. As if they haven't been on bad terms -- hadn't they ended things on bad terms? -- for three months.

How perfectly in keeping with the perfect Rory Gilmore.

"You're back," Paris says, more accusation in her voice than she intends.

Rory had said it would be at least another week before she got back to the city. (There's a date etched into Paris's appointment book. Two notifications scheduled through Siri. A countdown on an app.)

But there she is, standing in front of Magnolia Bakery with banana pudding clutched in one hand as the other braces against Nellie's head once she barrels into her, leaving Rory swaying back onto the balls of her feet.

It all happens very quickly, she's sure. Just seconds. But somehow it feels long and drawn out, like something from a horrible movie with a cheesy score. The kind of thing Doyle is probably writing. 

Like she can see each individual snowflake as it drifts past or settles on their shoulders, here on the crowded streets of New York City, occupying too much space themselves. Intrusive in a way nobody is prepared for.

She means the foot traffic, of course. Just that.

* 

"I didn't think I'd see you guys," Rory admits, like a confession of guilt. 

"So you were avoiding us."

"I was shopping," she says. " _For_ you." Nellie jerks slightly and Rory's hand settles on her head. "For all you guys!" 

Paris sniffs with something not entirely unlike disdain, although it doesn't feel very convincingly hateful, even to her. "That's nice."

"Well, it's Chanukah. And Christmas." 

"Yes, of course it is. I do own a calendar, Gilmore." 

Rory mostly looks startled. As if she hasn't been prolonging her time away from them, like a giant slap in the face. (As if Paris hadn't, rather dramatically, stormed out of the coffee shop during their final face-to-face conversation.)

"So… I was shopping for the kids."

Her mouth is set in a thin line that suggests there are things she wants to say but won't. Most of the things in this world that would keep Rory Gilmore from speaking her mind are not worth thinking about. Best left unsaid.

For once, Paris doesn't want to push. "That's… nice," is what she eventually lands on, watching Rory's face for any sign that she's meant to say more. Expected to provide.

But Rory just smiles.

It doesn't even feel completely forced. 

*

They spend the afternoon catching up over coffee (of course), talking around the past few months of distance in only the vaguest of terms except when it comes to the kids and all that they've accomplished. 

Paris is honestly very proud of them both.

"They're really blossoming, without Doyle in our lives," Paris muses, and she can see Rory's mouth tighten. Her sympathies are still clearly divided, and so Paris relents somewhat, adding, "I just mean, with him out in LA, they have more time to study on the weekends. Sometimes we take a trip to the museum. Just the four of us." Nanny comes too, of course. 

They've avoided the Guggenheim ever since Rory left town. Not just because it's entirely vapid -- and the children, of course, utterly agreed -- but because the one time that they happened to walk past it, Carl began asking after Rory and when she would return. 

"Who knows," Paris had said, sharply. "Sometimes people leave, Carl."

"Like daddy? Who leaves sometimes?"

Paris didn't know why it had felt so true, so exactly like what her problem was. "Yes. Like daddy."

She still wasn't sure.

* 

When they ready to part ways again, the sun has set and the snow is falling harder. Nellie and Carl race to gather it in their hands and slap snow against each other's backs.

Rory gets a wicked grin on her face and Paris can't help but smile. "Don't you dare."

"Oh, don't I?"

Something inside of Paris softens. Relents. Her smile grows even bigger. "Oh, I misspoke. I know you _do_. But I hope tonight you won't."

"How about tomorrow night?" 

Paris hesitates. "… will I see you tomorrow night?"

"If you want to." 

"I do," she answers more quickly than she'd like. She stinks of desperation and isn't even sure why. "I mean, the kids do."

They're still busy tossing snow on top of each other's heads, entirely distracted. It isn't a very convincing lie at all.

But Rory doesn't question it. "I'll come by to see the kids tomorrow." She adjusts her beanie on top of her head, pulling it lower against her ears. "But I hope you're there too."

"… of course." 

* 

It takes strength of will for Paris not to linger, watching Rory walk away.

Only Gilmore makes her this sentimental. Like a real kid again.

*

The next evening, Rory suggest they sing carols with the children, making up their own lyrics for some of the non-religious classics. It seems incredibly juvenile, but Carl loves it, laughing the entire time. 

Rory has a real way with children. Paris has noticed it for some time.

It's a shame.

Just that. A shame.

*

It's Rory's idea that she help tuck the kids in to bed, and Nellie and Carl both loudly approve.

It feels strange to Paris, but she doesn't object. (How could she possibly?) She's had one egg nog exactly, which is entirely one too many -- at any time, not just when watching children -- but instead of making her mood any worse, she feels much more agreeable. Ready to smile and sit at the foot of the bed as Nellie folds her hands atop the covers and asks in a very small but solemn voice, "Are you back to stay, Rory?"

There is only quiet at first. No answer except the rustling of the sheets as Carl sits up straighter. 

Eventually, Rory says, "Would you guys like that?"

"Yes," both answer in unison. 

It's honestly kind of creepy when they do that, most of the time, but not now.

"We can talk about it later, kiddos," Paris says, a playfulness even she doesn't expect settling into her voice.

"Will you read to us, Rory?"

It's Carl this time, just as wide-eyed and earnest. 

Paris isn't sure where either kid got those qualities from. Certainly not her or Doyle. (Could it be Rory? Or is that entirely ludicrous?)

"Sure," Rory says, her eyes scanning the room. "You want something festive, or…"

"From your book," Nellie suggests firmly. "Do you have it here?" Another pause, and Paris wishes that she wasn't seated at the end of the bed. She can't quite make out the look on Rory's face.

If this is somehow another dangerous topic they shouldn't be broaching. 

"Are we in it?" Carl asks, softly. 

"Yeah," Rory answers eventually, just as quietly. "You guys are in it. A little. Is that okay?"

"Do you make us sound cool?" Carl is sitting up so far now that he's practically out of his sheets. 

Rory does a fine job of scooting him back down into them by ruffling his hair and tapping a fingertip to his nose. "You already _are_ cool."

"Yeah," Carl has to admit. 

*

Rory doesn't have the manuscript with her, but promises to read it to them next time. 

Eventually they settle for a retelling of the Chanukah story, with Rory and Paris alternating characters and providing voices. 

It takes nearly an hour before both Nellie and Carl are passed out snoring.

Paris nearly collapses onto the sofa with a heavy sigh. "This is never this hard! Only when you're here."

"What do you usually read them?"

"… Nanny does that." Paris straightens somewhat, no longer comfortable slouching in front of Rory and what feels like an accusation of a kind.

But Rory only smiles and sits down in the other chair. If she's angry or she's quietly judging Paris, she gives no indication. 

It's strange. 

"Well, maybe we can make it a new thing."

"You mean if you stay here?" Paris tries to keep her voice neutral. Unaffected. 

"… would that be okay?" Rory's hands are gripping the chair seat underneath her. She crosses her legs to keep from fidgeting them. "Just for a while."

"And then you'll leave again."

"That's not…"

"I thought your book was finished."

Rory frowns. Paris isn't sure what she's thinking.

She's never quite sure what Gilmore is thinking. (Sometimes said with great emphasis and clear annoyance.)

"No. Not yet."

"Isn't that why you left? Without warning or reason? Threw yourself out into the wilds of--"

"Hotel rooms, Paris. Like I said."

"-- but that's _why_ , wasn't it? To tell your great American novel." 

"No." But Rory hesitates then, as though debating something inside herself. Whether it's about honesty or something else, Paris can't be sure. Maybe this is one of those things Rory doesn't want to admit aloud to anyone. (Paris can understand that.) But then, "I guess maybe. In the beginning, I guess, it was that. But… I don't want to be that person."

"Who?"

"The kind who profits off other people's pain."

Paris sneers before she can stop herself. "That's life, kid."

"I'm not a kid," Rory answers sharply. "And it doesn't have to be, does it?"

This time Paris hesitates. She allows herself a moment to think more clearly. The only conclusion she reaches, however, is: "I need another drink. Fuck egg nog."

"Amen."

* 

Several glasses of wine later, Paris has to bite her tongue to avoid mentioning that she can help Rory have a baby, you know, any time. That's what she actually does. No man needed.

She really almost says it four times.

* 

One order of delivery pizza later and it's Rory who broaches the topic of children.

Though not in a way Paris had expected at all. 

"Whoever you end up with, whenever you have another kid--"

"God, why? Why would you even say that?"

"-- I just want you to know, that you really should give up naming privileges." Rory pauses, and then. "No offense."

It doesn't offend her. Maybe it should. Maybe she should want to yell. It's sort of stupid, after all. And petty. Not the kind of thing you should say to a divorced mother of two at all. 

But what Paris says instead is, "Why not Richard?" Rory stops. She waits. The smile drops from her face and Paris almost regrets saying anything at all.

Until finally, Rory answers, saying, "That's a great name."

"Thank you."


	5. life lived as a footnote

* * *

_[To the tune of Frosty the Snowman.]_

Christopher Marlowe had ambition and had goals.  
He made women weak and had enemies;  
a bar fight his final role. 

Christopher Marlowe: some say that he was gay  
Could have been a spy so twas do or die;  
the whole world is not a play.

There could be some real logic to  
the theories that abound;  
but truth of how he lost his life  
continues to confound. 

Oh, Christopher Marlowe was alive and then was not.  
The dear man was brill, far greater than Will,  
no matter what is taught.


	6. the world doesn't have an epilogue

* * *

Rory deletes all her chapters about the time spent on the road. She scrubs the backups from her Dropbox and Google Drive. 

She tells her mom she's shelved this story for now. 

"Until we're both ready," she says, and feels like she really means it. 

Rory's sure she'll find a real ending somehow. Someday.

When she's ready. When they all are.

*

Endings are never easy. It's not just with writing, either. With life. 

Death is an ending. Loss of anything can be an ending. 

Some might even say that life is little more than a series of endings, sometimes overlapped with beginnings. But aren't most new starts just the point at which something else has broken away? A new relationship comes after another one has ended.

New beginnings happen only after you've finally let go.

But when is that? 

How do you know something isn't there? How do you accept the finite things?

When do you stop? When can you start again?

*

Rory gingerly places presents under the tree on Christmas Eve. Luke is there, standing ready with a cup of hot chocolate. Mom provides candy canes for stirring.

Paul Anka paces before settling his head down on their laps as they settle in for a Christmas classic: Die Hard.

"This is the life," Lorelai says, and Rory wonders.

Is it? Is it now?

*

Has it started?

*

She opens presents on Christmas morning and receives cheerful texts from Paris, who tries so hard she uses several emojis she would normally avoid to keep from being tacky.

Everything is how it should be. Probably.

But Rory still feels restless.

* 

She drives all morning on the 26th to make it back to Manhattan close to sunrise. The children rush into her arms on their way out the door.

"What is this?"

"Boxing Day," Paris grouches. "One of their friends. Her pretentious parents celebrate all the European holidays." She rolls her eyes. "They're from Connecticut."

Paris helps Rory carry in her bag the rest of the way as Nanny leads the children off on their adventure.

* 

That night they light the menorah together. It's Carl's turn and he's so excited he's almost vibrating.

"Careful, baby," Paris murmurs softly. 

His spine straightens. "I'm a man, mommy."

It's only the third night and his hands are steady enough, even as Nellie sniffs in disapproval, so Rory doesn't object or intervene, though she sees the way Paris feels inclined to hover.

*

Rory is still there on the eighth night. 

*

And on New Year's Eve too, when they all fall asleep on the sofa, in what a Gilmore (but certainly never a Geller) might refer to as a cuddle pile.

The next morning Rory notices two voicemails from her publisher, wondering if she'll make it into the city in time for the holiday party.

She makes a note to herself to call them back later with some kind of apology.

For now, she goes back to sleep.

* 

Her rest is peaceful. Dreamless. 

She wakes up feeling refreshed and ready for whatever. 

*

Beginnings aren't a lot easier than endings either. 

But the most important part is to know when it's time to start one.

*

Now? Is it now?

Is it--

**Author's Note:**

> So this isn't even slightly something that Smalls asked for in our secret Santa letters, but rather something she said -- right to my face -- that she wanted to have written for her, after the fact. I don't know if it's what she would have really, really wanted if she knew that she was speaking to her Secret Santa at the time. (Maybe she knew?)
> 
> But somehow this is what came out. And I hope it's still an acceptable present, despite the bumpy ups and downs.
> 
>  **TRIGGER WARNING:** Miscarriage. There is a depiction of a miscarriage. If this will be at all upsetting, please don't read, or consider skimming the mid-point of chapter two.


End file.
